Audiobook Review: The Otherworld by Abbie Emmons
The Otherworld
Author: Abbie Emmons
Narrators:
Alex Picard
Edward Black
Eric Smies
Published: December 5, 2023
Audiobook: 13 hours 49 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: August 18-25, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 2.5 stars
Book Description:
Orca Monroe wants only one thing for her eighteenth birthday: to experience the Otherworld—the mysterious “mainland” across the sea that her father has forbidden her from visiting.
Growing up in a lighthouse on a remote island, Orca has lived isolated from the world… until one day when she finds a cell phone washed up on the beach. Orca has her first conversation with Jack Stevenson, a young man whose older brother, Adam, has gone missing after crashing his seaplane off the coast. Orca becomes Jack’s lifeline and his reason to hope that Adam is still alive. While her father is away, she scours the island for the missing pilot—determined to help Jack find his brother and prove to her father that she’s strong enough to take on the world.
One stormy night, Orca finds Adam Stevenson collapsed on her doorstep. As she nurses him back to health, she finds herself spellbound by his inquiring mind and rugged good looks. Simultaneously, Adam is captivated by her wild beauty and pure heart. But with a ten-year age gap between them—and her father’s determination to keep Orca protected from outsiders—Adam knows they can never be together.
Resigned to give Orca up, Adam returns to the mainland—but Jack refuses to leave her trapped at the lighthouse. Blind to the fact that his brother is in love with her, Jack offers to show Orca the world she’s always dreamed of. But when she leaves her island for the first time, Orca begins to realize that the mainland may hold more dark secrets than she ever imagined… and the two brothers she helped bring back together may be the very people she tears apart.
Jessica’s Review:
**This review will have spoilers.**
The Otherworld is YA as the main character just turned 18, but deals with a love triangle with two brothers, one also 18 and the other being 28. I did not have a problem with the age difference between Orca and Adam, but her living on an island with just her father, she possesses an innocence and then her naiveté that made her come off younger. In some ways this novel reminded me of Disney’s The Little Mermaid with Ariel and Eric, but no villain.
I liked Adam, of the two brothers, he was the better choice. Some of that comes with age, which Adam has 10 years over his brother. Jack definitely acted like a much younger brother who still has a lot of maturing to do.
I did not agree with the ending. Despite being an adult, Orca needs more ‘growing up’ IE: She needs to actually experience more of the world and meeting more people before settling down with the first man she meets. She is thinking she is in love, when in essence it is just lust and her hormones starting for the first time. At times Adam tries to fight his feelings, but in the end, feelings win out over common sense. Jack is also a hormonal 18-year-old and it shows. He does have a bit of a redeeming arc towards the end.
I found the side story of Orca’s parents intriguing. It was a ‘side quest’ for Adam and Orca as she encounters ‘the otherworld’ for the first time. Orca’s mother was harsh. But being harsh was no reason to leave your infant daughter with just her father on an island with no one else. While in ‘the otherworld’ the listener gets to experience with Orca eating pizza and discovering a few other things. But for me, Orca needed to live and experience more of ‘the otherworld’.
Again, this is a YA novel and is for YA readers. I am far from the target audience and my opinion of this book shows that. This is a novel that just did not work for me.
All three narrators did a great job portraying Orca, Adam, and Jack. For me they captured the characters essence perfectly.
I read Emmons “Tessa and Weston books” (100 Days of Sunlight and Tessa and Weston: The Best Christmas Ever) several years ago and adored them. I remember Emmons saying on social media that she is working on another T&W book. I will need to re-read the other two again before reading that one once it is released.